| the ledge files the ledge - nl - uk |
new search |
conversations books |
El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra publisher: Juan de la Cuesta, Madrid, 1605 / 1615 translated as: Don Quixote publisher: Penguin, 2003 translation: John Rutherford –› Excerpt refered to by: Madame Bovary: Patterns of Provincial Life Gustave Flaubert Max Havelaar or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company Multatuli The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Laurence Sterne The Iliad Homer The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain Bleak House Charles Dickens One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez Ulysses James Joyce The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera Lolita Vladimir Nabokov [Vreemd] Bob Rigter This Blinding Absence of Light Tahar Ben Jelloun
|
Don Quixote is considered a profound delineation of two conflicting attitudes toward the world: idealism and realism. The work has been appreciated as a satire on unrealistic extremism, an exposition of the tragedy of idealism in a corrupt world, and a plea for widespread reform. Whatever its intended emphasis, the work presented to the world an unforgettable description of the transforming power of illusion, and it has had an indelible effect on the development of the European novel. Don Quixote is a country gentleman who has read too many chivalric |
romances. He and the peasant Sancho Panza, who serves as his squire, set forth on a series of extravagant adventures. The whole fabric of 16th-century Spanish society is detailed with piercing yet sympathetic insight. The addled idealism of Don Quixote and the earthy acquisitiveness of Sancho serve as catalysts for numerous humorous and pathetic exploits and incidents. Its panorama of characters, the excellence of its tales, and its vivid portrayal of human nature contribute to the enduring influence of Don Quixote. - www.bartleby.com |
| bookweb | ||
| ON CERVANTES' BOOKSHELF Amadis de Gaule Garcia-Rodriguez de Montalvo, 1508 A Spanish chivalric romance - parodied by Cervantes in his Don Quixote - which grew to be a 21-part series. [Palmerin de Inglaterra] Francisco de Moraes, 1567 Together with Amadis de Gaule, this Portuguese chivalric romance has a place of honor in Don Quixote's library. Even the village priest spares it from the flames... Tirant lo Blanc Joanot Martorell, 1460 First published in the Catalan language in Valencia in 1490, Tirant lo Blanc ('The White Tyrant') is a sweeping epic of chivalry and high adventure. 'I swear to you, my friend, it's the best book of its kind in the world.' - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote The Praise of Folly Desiderius Erasmus, 1510 A satire on the pretensions of Erasmus's contemporaries in the Church and philosophy, written for the amusement of his learned friend Thomas More. Gargantua and Pantagruel François Rabelais, 1532-1553 The classic satirical and ribald tale about the travels of Gargantua and Pantagruel, set in the French countryside. Lazarillo de Tormes Anonymous, 1554 The first picaresque novel: a brief, simply told tale of a rogue’s adventures and misadventures - full of laconic cynicism and spiced with puns and wordplay. Orlando Furioso Ludovico Ariosto, 1532 A brilliantly witty parody of the medieval romances, and a fitting monument to the court society of the Italian Renaissance which gave them birth. | BOOKS BY MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA: Don Quixote 1605 / 1615 –› Excerpt A comic study of delusion and its consequences; Don Quixote, the old gentleman of La Mancha, takes to the road in search of adventure and remains undaunted in the face of repeated disaster. | WHAT TO READ AFTER DON QUIXOTE? BOOKS CAN CLOUD YOUR JUDGEMENT Madame Bovary: Patterns of Provincial Life Gustave Flaubert, 1857 Emma Bovary, a young country doctor' s wife, seeks escape from the boredom of her existence in love affairs and romantic yearnings, but is doomed to disillusionment. CERVANTESQUE WANDERINGS Ulysses James Joyce, 1922 Stylistically varied Homer-parody about the Dublin everyman Leopold Bloom, who emerges as surrogate father to Stephen Dedalus on the day his wife Molly sleeps with another man. MODERN 'CERVANTESQUES' Henderson the Rain King Saul Bellow, 1959 Henderson has come to Africa on a spiritual safari, a quest for 'the truth.' His feats of strength, his passion for life, and, most importantly, his inadvertant 'success' in bringing rain have made him a god-like figure among the tribes. THE NOBLE (WISE) FOOL The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War Jaroslav Hasek, 1920-1923 The deeply funny story of a hapless Czech soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army - dismissed for incompetence only to be pressed into service by the Russians in World War I (where he is captured by his own troops). (CLASSIC) PICARESQUE & CERVANTESQUE The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus Hans Jakob Christoph von Grimmelshausen, 1668 The vagabond adventures of a not-so-simple simpleton during one of Europe's fiercest, yet ultimately most futile wars. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Laurence Sterne, 1759-1767 This book interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate 'hero' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters. MODERN 'CERVANTESQUES' The Flatteners, starring Sir Oliver Bommel Marten Toonder, 1969 / 1972 Adventures of Sir Oliver Bommel - a most aristocratic bear - and his best friend Tom Puss. THE NOBLE (WISE) FOOL Catch-22 Joseph Heller, 1961 At the heart of Joseph Heller's bestselling novel, first published in 1961, is a satirical indictment of military madness and stupidity, and the desire of the ordinary man to survive it. [Keefman] Jan Arends, 1972 Autobiographical stories about life in a mental institution. CERVANTESQUE WANDERINGS Dead Souls Nikolai Gogol, 1842 In this quintessentially Russian novel, the reader follows Chichikov, a dismissed civil servant turned con-man, through the countryside in pursuit of his shady enterprise. Moby Dick Herman Melville, 1851 The Nantucket whaling ship, the Pequod, spirals the globe in search of Moby Dick, the mythical white whale of the Southern Oceans. WITH A WINK TO LITERATURE (AND LITERARY HISTORY)* Lolita Vladimir Nabokov, 1955 The story of Humbert Humbert and his obsession with 12-year-old Dolores Haze. Determined to possess his 'Lolita' both carnally and artistically, Humbert embarks on a disastrous courtship that can only end in tragedy. Fictions Jorges Luis Borges, 1935/ 1944 / 1949 Not quite short stories, Borgesian narrations are metaphysical speculation, the elaborate working out of a hypothetical premise or philosophical concept. The Black Book Orhan Pamuk, 1990 Galip, an Istanbul lawyer, suspects that his vanished wife is hiding out with her half-brother, a newspaper columnist whose fame Galip envies. Galip plays the part of private investigator, with dire consequences. BOOKS CAN CLOUD YOUR JUDGEMENT Auto-da-fé Elias Canetti, 1935 This is the story of a distinguished scholar in Germany between the wars. It builds up the elements in the scholar himself, and in his personal relationships, which will lead to his destruction. A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole, 1980 A monument to sloth, rant and contempt, and suspicious of anything modern - meet Ignatius J. Reilly of New Orleans, crusader against dunces. |
| Galatea 1585 A pastoral romance. | ||
| Exemplary Stories 1613 More popular in their day than Don Quixote, Cervantes' Exemplary Stories defy the conventions of heroic chivalric literature through a combination of comic irony, moral ambiguity, realism, and sheer mirth. | ||
| : |
||
| The Ledge editor-in-chief: Stacey Knecht, info@the-ledge.com Thanks to: De digitale pioniers and Het Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Design: Maurits de Bruijn |
Copyright: Pieter Steinz, Stacey Knecht All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. |
|